Optimization analysis of fire characteristics and emergency evacuation scheme of small- and medium-sized high-speed railway stations

Abstract To study the fire spread law in high-speed railway stations and suggest a reasonable evacuation plan, we first establish a physical model based on a high-speed railway station in the Shandong building using Pyrosim software. We then simulate and analyze the variation rules for the smoke temperature, CO volume fraction, and visibility in the commercial mezzanine and waiting-hall space for a left-side fire and identify the most critical factors affecting personnel evacuation. Anylogic software, which considers the crowd social forces as well as the effect of visibility on personnel speed in areas where the fire is dynamically spreading, is used to compare and analyze the free-evacuation scheme and different guided evacuation schemes in terms of the required safety evacuation time. The optimal fire emergency evacuation scheme is then proposed. The results show that the smoke from a fire on the left commercial mezzanine will seriously threaten the upper stair entrance of the commercial mezzanine. Notably, visibility is the most critical factor affecting personnel evacuation. Under the free evacuation scheme, the utilization of evacuation exits is not balanced, and unsurprisingly, personnel congestion at the station entrance occurs. This affects evacuation efficiency. Accordingly, changing the evacuation personnel path and evacuation exit based on the shortest path under equal-area zoning evacuation can effectively reduce the personnel evacuation time.